They start at $70k. And they are actually still losing money on each sale.

It’s largely marketed as a recreation/sport vehicle. It’s for going camping and off-roading.

That isn’t too say that it can’t also get you to and from work, or even be used for constructive uses. But at the price and feature set, I think anyone would agree it’s designed to be a fun luxury first and foremost rather than a practical tool.

Whew. I’m glad he’s happy with his purchase. I can’t ever imagine having enough money that I could drop that kind of cash on a toy, no matter how neat I think it looks.

Haha a bike.

I hold out hope, actually, that as the right-to-repair movement continues to grow, eventually repairability and control will become more common consumer interests, in the same way that vehicle safety wasn’t something people thought about when buying a car before the 70s, and now it’s one of the main influences when buying a car.

Once people start caring – and again, I believe this is the direction we’re heading – it will become something manufacturers have to design for.

This is modestly interesting. My brother worked here before they had layoffs about two years ago, and had a generally favorable opinion of the company and leadership.

Fundamentally, while I think RJ seems like a sound businessman and technologist, and I like the company’s taste a bit, I will never be able to reconcile his views with mine. He very openly views cars as computers and software and services that happen to move you around, and I would like it to be a machine over which I have as minimal a relationship as possible with the manufacturer after I acquire the product.

Still, I wish them luck.

You know, for a guy with the username “Sunzu”, I feel like you’re demonstrating a remarkable lack of vision of power dynamics.

First, I’m not a Democrat. I’m not invested in holding up that party.

Again, I’m talking more to any audience than you in particular: when someone says that any attempt to use power creatively is a waste of time, I think that is either ignorant or in bad faith. The SIZE of any given effect or the use of resources in one place or another can be certainly debated, but the logic of the revitalized antitrust movement is very, very sound. Power has been left unused, and now people like Khan and Jonathan Kantor are learning how to use it again, and showing others.

The logic you’re outlining runs in contradiction to what we might call “The Bork consensus”. A lot of the issues we face WERE developed through regulatory capture rather than legislation, led by Robert Bork under Reagan. If you don’t want to use that power for anything, feel free, but I’m going to evangelize using every tool available. And these are pretty big ones.

If I can be frank, I’m reading from your tone that you’re not here for polite, factual persuasion. But if I’m wrong, or someone else sees this, I gotta drop a fact check on the ‘Lina can’t win cases’ myth:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/out-with-a-bang-as-ftc-beats-the

More practically, this loss discredits the main argument from Wall Street. Dealmakers, and thinkers like Larry Summers, have often said that while Biden antitrust enforcers are aggressive, if corporations are willing to go to court, the government is likely to lose because judges won’t let them rewrite the law. This narrative was so strong that Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter were questioned in Congress as to whether they were even trying to win. It’s always been a narrow and bad faith critique, but this victory, plus, the win in the Fifth Circuit over Illumina, should put that narrative to rest. Antitrust lawyers will tell their clients to go to court at their peril.

It’s kind of a deep dive, but it’s worth it.

While I don’t traffic in such forceful language, I can answer what @criitz means:

Bernie Sanders raised millions of dollars on the promise to lead a political revolution. For many supporters, that proposition was taken literally. They thought that his campaign was not simply a vehicle to give him the power of the presidency, but was the organizing structure for a persistent movement of activists reengaging with democracy each and every week BETWEEN elections. And when he dropped out, a lot of those people lost their connections to social and organizing structures that were giving them hope and an outlet for meeting like-minded people to find ways to make their communities better. So when he ended his campaign and all that money and infrastructure got instantly packed up and taken away, they felt like they’d been misled.

Some found their way into activism through the DSA or climate groups, but for many, the way in which he disbanded his campaign without following through on the implied promise to transform it into something durable was a very unexpected and painful surprise.

Pete needs to go mayor some more. He had a few good ideas during the primary, but as Transportation Secretary I’m astounded at his lack of ambition.

There are a handful of administration officials – Lina Khan first among them – who’ve learned to use their power assertively to make changes to broken systems. And Pete… he seems like he just pops up when another piece of infrastructure breaks to let us know that he’s on it. Maybe he’s doing something more, but if so he’s doing it very, very quietly.

I like Porter. AOC needs a rest, I think.

I used to be really captivated by her leadership, but in the last few years, I think things have gotten complicated. Perhaps I’m being too forgiving, but during Biden’s presidency it seemed like she lost her nerve to stick her neck out for what she believed in more and more. Maybe I’m inventing things, but I get the sense that January 6th scared the fucking shit out of her. I think her life flashed before her eyes, and afterwards she felt like being among the most progressive voices while trying not to rock the boat too much or draw too much personal attention from the right was enough, and that challenging Democrats on their bullshit was too stressful and risky.

If that’s the case, I don’t blame her. I still admire what she’s done, but she does not have the spark she once did.

I agree with you… but I don’t disagree with @john_mcmurray.

The fact that Biden actually participates in genocide at all is just ghastly. I honestly struggle to find the words for it. And once he crossed that bridge, I will never ever try to argue with someone who assigns him equal moral equivalence with Trump.

It’s like debating whether someone who killed one of your children is better than someone who killed two. Mathematically? I think so. Conceptually? Those are who child murderers. The difference is negligible.

There are still Palestinians alive right now, though, so we can’t give up, no matter how heartbroken.

This take gave me a chuckle.

A little yes and a little no.

I think all of these people are monsters, but I’m also trying to find the best option among bad options. If Harris is president, I can live with that. If Trump gets elected again… I think the possibility of Palestinians getting exterminated becomes a genuine possibility, and the damage to our climate and our ability to reverse course after four years look very fragile.

It’s very depressing.

I get where you’re coming from, but the meme is a joke, and this particular set of jokes doesn’t work if you do it that way.

The truth is, you didn’t need to convince me. I think Biden is a monster. The meme is a set of jokes written in the voice of a mainstream American political pundit, not a genuine reflection of my personal attitudes.

My personal attitudes are that every US president is a war criminal, and Biden, Bush, Cheney, and Blinken should be hauled off to the international criminal court.

Sadly, all the candidates are very big cops.

This is a common layman misconception. The term “hitler” isn’t actually based on how much the candidate engages in human rights abuses: it’s just a marker of how widely voters recognize them as “hitler-y” (to use the technical term).

A fun fact: within the field of meme political science it’s recognized that if we did apply a quantitative rubric, ALL of the US Presidents are actually hitlers!

Oof. I kinda would too, but also… boy that’d be an uncomfortable read.

Pure guess? 30% would pick Hitler… 15% would refuse to answer.

I don’t know if you can read the text easily on mobile, but there’s a joke in the text describing there about how he is indeed committing genocide.

The label says “Not a hitler?”.

The X means you fail at not being a hitler. Hitler fails this test.